"The central doctrine of Christianity, then, is not that God is a bastard. It is, in the words of the late Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe, that if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you."--Terry Eagleton

"It is impossible for me to say in my book one word about all that music has meant in my life. How then can I hope to be understood?--Ludwig Wittgenstein

“The opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice."--Bryan Stevenson

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Oh, Shut Up, Fool!

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R-Dumbass) has roiled the international waters by warning members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe who have been invited here by the U.S. Government to monitor the upcoming federal elections that:

The Texas Election Code governs anyone who participates in Texas elections—including representatives of the OSCE. The OSCE’s representatives are not authorized by Texas law to enter a polling place. It may be a criminal offense for OSCE’s representatives to maintain a presence within 100 feet of a polling place’s entrance. Failure to comply with these requirements could subject the OSCE’s representatives to criminal prosecution for violating state law.

Under Texas law, the county or district attorney has primary
jurisdiction to prosecute most criminal offenses. The Office of the
Attorney General assists local prosecutors at their request. The law
also authorizes this agency to proffer assistance to local prosecutors.
Most OAG prosecutions are undertaken on referrals.
Chapter 1, section 1.09, of the Penal Code provides that, “with the
consent of the appropriate local county or district attorney, the
Attorney General has concurrent jurisdiction with that consenting local
prosecutor” to prosecute certain offenses, including:

With the consent of the appropriate local county or district attorney,
the attorney general has concurrent jurisdiction with that consenting
local prosecutor to prosecute under this code any offense an element of
which occurs on state property or any offense that involves the use,
unlawful appropriation, or misapplication of state property, including
state funds.

So aside from the violation of international treaties that this threat represents, Mr. Abbott literally has no authority to issue such threats; not unless a Texas District Attorney asks the AG's office to help in the prosecution of a violation of the Texas Election Code. Provided, I take it, that the offense takes place on state property; and most Texas polling places I've ever been in are not state property.

For all the authority Abbott wields in this matter, this letter might as well come from a private citizen. So please, Mr. Abbott, just shut up. You're embarrassing the rest of us in Texas.

Ambassador Janez Lenarčič, the Director of the OSCE Office for
Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), expressed his grave
concern today over the threat of criminal prosecution of OSCE/ODIHR
election observers.

This threat, contained in an open letter from the Attorney General of
Texas, is at odds with the established good co-operation between
OSCE/ODIHR observers and state authorities across the United States,
including in Texas, Lenarčič said, adding that it is also contrary to
the country’s obligations as an OSCE participating State.
....

The ODIHR limited election observation mission for the 2012 general
elections in the United States consists of a core team of 13 experts,
from 10 OSCE participating States, based in Washington D.C., and 44
long-term observers deployed throughout the country. These are the sixth
United States elections the Office has observed, without incident,
since 2002.

Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart
said if the observers showed up at a poll location, "I'd kick them out
of there. It's as plain as that. Right now, my understanding is you
can't be in there unless you are a poll worker or a voter or a
legitimate poll watcher. It's illegal for them to be a poll watcher
unless they're a citizen of Texas."

Contrary
to Clerk Stanart's belief, Texas is not a sovereign nation with its own
standards for "citizenship." This, however, is about right:

Mark P. Jones, chairman of the political science department at Rice University,
said observers are "pretty normal" in elections. He said it is
reasonable for Abbott to weigh in because the decision to send observers
suggests "there's at least the potential implication the state's
electoral rules are flawed."

Raising the prospect of criminal sanctions "is probably going over
the top a little bit," Jones suggested, "but Abbott's become very good
at this. Greg Abbott now does not miss an opportunity to appeal to the
Republican base. … This is just showing his bona fides as a
conservative, someone who will help resist … U.N. meddling in Texas politics."

We do have cooler heads in Texas:

Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade
also wrote to Everts on Tuesday to express concern that, based on media
reports, it appeared that "this valuable information sharing program"
was being politicized. She wrote that it was "critical" that Texans
understand the organization is in Texas only to learn about the state's
election processes.

And as for the threats of criminal prosecution, nothing's gonna happen:

Keith Ingram,
director of the elections division in Andrade's office, said in an
email to county election officials Tuesday that any characterization of
the OSCE observers as monitors was false. Ingram said he had met with
the two-person team last week and told them the Election Code would not
allow them into actual polling places, and that they understood.

Here's
where I point out Texas has 254 counties. I can't easily find the
total number of polling precincts in Texas, but Bexar county alone has
661. OSCE has two people coming to observe our elections.

The
amount of interference they can do is absolutely incalculable.
Especially if they never get within 100 feet of a polling place. It's a
pity Abbott is getting more attention than Andrade.

I don't think it's asked often enough what they want to hide. Perhaps that's because it's so obvious. Voter fraud that has been documented is mostly a Republican operation and it's wide spread.

That the 1st amendment champions of the "free press" minimize this absolute basis of freedom and a legitimate, representative government, as they have the most freedom they ever have, shows that there's something wrong with that theory of a free press as a guarantee of a free People. It obviously doesn't work the way its advertised.

OTOOH, Abbott makes a lot of hay appealing to American Nativism, and the UN is a shibboleth from generations back, especially in Texas (I have a memory of people holding anti-U.N. signs at Love Field when Kennedy made his ill-fated trip to Dallas, but I could be wrong).

So this could be sheer political calculus. Which doesn't mean it isn't prompted by something; does it?